In today’s Bulldog wrapup of technology news:

  • Three Cree employees have been charged will running a theft operation in Wisconsin
  • Raleigh and Durham metros score well in tech jobs survey
  • Twitter stock plunges
  • Samsung profits take huge hit
  • New LG phones will include leather backs

The details:

  • Cree workers charged in alleged theft ring

A group of Cree workers in Wisconsin have been charged with setting up a story on eBay and selling some $90,000 of Cree lighting products.

Three men were charged Wednesday.

“According to a criminal complaint, company officials discovered more than 400 unauthorized deliveries of Cree products were shipped between July 23 and March 31,” The Journal Times reported out of Sturtevant, Wis.

Read more: http://journaltimes.com/tncms/asset/editorial/1161e81c-9e91-53af-bcd6-7134b207d961/#ixzz3Ygyep0mt

  • Survey: Durham, Raleigh metros rank high in tech jobs

The Durham and Raleigh metro areas rank high for technology jobs, says a report from NerdWallet, a financial news and services site.

Durham-Chapel Hill is No. 4 and Raleigh-Cary is No. 8.

Read more at: http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/morning_call/2015/04/no-surprise-here-triangle-metros-among-10-best.html

  • Twitter stock tumbles after revenue, outlook miss

Twitter’s stock dropped sharply as the company’s revenue and outlook fell short of expectations at a time investors are looking for stronger advertising growth to make up for less-than-stellar user numbers.

Twitter’s adjusted earnings for the first quarter topped Wall Street estimates but revenue fell short of expectations and of Twitter’s own guidance.

The company posted a loss of $162 million, or 25 cents per share, in the January-March period. That compares with a loss of $132 million, or 23 cents per share, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings were 7 cents per share. Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting 4 cents.

  • Samsung’s profit hit by bigger iPhones, sinks 39 percent

Samsung Electronics Co. said its first quarter net profit plunged 39 percent as consumers switched to bigger iPhones, squeezing earnings from its mobile business to less than half what they were a year earlier.

The company reported Wednesday that its January-March net profit was 4.63 trillion won ($4.35 billion), compared with 7.49 trillion won a year earlier. That was lower than the forecast of 4.97 trillion won in a survey of analysts by financial data provider FactSet.

The larger-than-expected drop was due to a big profit plunge in Samsung’s mobile business. The maker of Galaxy smartphones said its mobile division generated 2.74 trillion won in quarterly profit compared with 6.43 trillion won a year earlier.

Analysts estimate Samsung sold more smartphones than Apple during the quarter. But the Korean firm lost ground in the more profitable high-end market to Apple after the maker of the iPhone began offering models with bigger screens last fall. Before that, large screens were a feature that set Samsung phones apart.

  • LG’s new G4 phones will have leather backs

​Optional leather backs and manual camera controls are two ways LG is seeking to distinguish its new G4 phone from Apple’s iPhones and Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones.

LG’s mobile chief, Juno Cho, said a wireless trade show in Barcelona, Spain, last month confirmed LG’s belief that smartphones have become clones of one another.

“I was almost shocked,” Cho told The Associated Press. “Almost all the phones on display and introduced looked very (much the) same — the same metal casing and emphasis on thinness, overall form factors that are very similar.”

The message at Tuesday’s announcement of the new G4: We’re not like the others.

Apple and Samsung dominate the smartphone market, with LG Electronics Inc. and other companies vying for third place with market shares of less than 5 percent each.

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